Maker

by Michael Jan Friedman

  “Picard Here,” He Said,

  Sitting up in Bed and Running

  His Fingers Through His Hair.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir, but we’re being hailed by an unidentified cargo vessel. Whoever’s in command wants to speak with you—and you alone.”

  “Very well,” said the captain. “I will take it here in my quarters.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Instantly, the Federation insignia on the screen—a disk displaying a field of gleaming stars resting in the embrace of twin laurel wreaths—gave way to a different image entirely.

  It was that of a woman, and a very beautiful woman at that. She had long black hair gathered into a ponytail and eyes the color of rich, dark chocolate. And it wasn’t the first time the captain had seen her…

  Though the last time had been in another galaxy.

  Other Stargazer Novels

  The Valiant

  Gauntlet

  Progenitor

  Three

  Oblivion

  Enigma

  Requiem

  Reunion

  The First Virtue

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

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  Copyright © 2004 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.

  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.

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  ISBN: 0-7434-4859-6

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  For Debbie and Stu, who understand

  Chapter One

  ANDREAS NIKOLAS HAD RUN into his share of alien species. He had attended the Academy with them, worked alongside them on starships, eaten with them, slept with them, laughed with them, and risked his life with them.

  But he had never encountered anyone like the personage who towered before him in an otherwise empty corridor of the Yridian cargo hauler Iktoj’ni.

  This alien was taller than Nikolas by half a meter and remarkably thick-chested beneath his coarse, dark tunic, giving the impression of enormous strength—though he was quite clearly padded elsewhere with a surfeit of flaccid flesh. His oblong head was bald except for a long, lank circlet of dark hair, and his mouth was little more than a gash in his face.

  But his most distinctive feature by far was his eyes. They glowed a dazzling silver beneath the overhanging ledge of his brow, fixing Nikolas where he stood.

  “I am glad you are awake,” said the behemoth, his voice a hair-raising jangle of stones.

  It echoed off the cone-shaped mineral deposits that hung from the ceiling and rose from the floor—because it wasn’t quite true that Nikolas and the alien were alone in the duranium-sheathed passageway. There weren’t any other sentients there, but there was an abundant collection of orange- and blue-veined stalagmites and stalactites—the kind that seemed to belong in an underground cavern, not in the corridor of an Yridian cargo hauler.

  And if that weren’t disconcerting enough, the projections were growing before Nikolas’s eyes, lengthening and adding girth with the help of the mineral-bearing water streaming down their sides.

  Where was the water coming from? He didn’t know. The Iktoj’ni wasn’t supposed to have any water supply. Its crew washed with the help of sonic emitters and got their drinking water from replicators, the same as their food.

  So why were there crystalline threads descending the smooth, shiny surface of the stalactites? And how could mineral deposits have gotten so robust in the short time Nikolas had been stretched out on a lower deck?

  Awake, the alien had said. But was he awake?

  He had lost consciousness sometime during the attack on the Iktoj’ni. And though he appeared to have woken up, bruised and limping and lacerated but alive, it was tempting to believe he was still asleep—because otherwise, how could he explain the madness to which he had woken?

  Several days earlier, Starfleet had warned the cargo hauler about a wave of unidentified aggressors boasting formidable weaponry. But it hadn’t said anything about ship’s corridors turning into subterranean caves.

  “After all,” the behemoth continued, in the same discordant voice, “you are going to be a big help to me.” He smiled, exposing a rampart of thick, blunt teeth as his mouth stretched from one side of his face to the other. “A big help.”

  Nikolas didn’t like the sound of the remark. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice sounding strange even to his own ears.

  It gave him a moment’s pause. Had he suffered some damage in the attack after all, beyond the cut over his eye and the painful stiffness in his limbs?

  The alien didn’t answer Nikolas’s unspoken question—not out loud, anyway. But as the silver orbs in his eye sockets glowed brighter, Nikolas heard something in his brain.

  My doing, said the monster, in a small, harsh whisper. All my doing.

  A telepath…? Nikolas thought.

  And the alien’s smile spread even wider, though the human wouldn’t have believed it possible. He seemed to be taking pleasure in Nikolas’s discomfort.

  But it’s not enough, the colossus breathed in Nikolas’s mind. I need more.

  Suddenly, the human felt a shiver rise from the depths of his being and take hold of his entire body—a shiver of shock and helplessness, because the alien wasn’t just speaking inside his head anymore. He was dredging up memories.

  The death-scream of a thousand finger-sized quadrupeds on Mercker V. The bitter stench of tortured metal after a grisly shuttlecraft crash. The glint of sunlight off an old woman’s hair on a fertile moon of Samito III…

  The alien wasn’t gentle about it, either. He stalked about Nikolas’s mind without conscience or compunction, probing and prodding, not caring what he damaged in the process.

  Semi-sentient life-forms slithering under the surface of an inland sea. The feel of scales on the naked thigh of his Heiren lover. The bite of homemade ouzo on his tongue, setting fire to his throat and then his brain…

  The intruder thrust himself into every fold and crevice of the human’s experience, sampling and rejecting, violating privacies great and small. Nothing stopped him, nothing was off-limits.

  Nikolas couldn’t stand the feeling of invasion. It filled him with such revulsion, such self-loathing, that he wanted to escape his own skin. Concentrating with all his might, he tried to expel the alien from his brain.

  But he couldn’t. It was like trying to wrestle an enraged mugato. And just as Nikolas realized how powerless he was against the invasion, how utterly overmatched, the alien began to thrust even deeper into his consciousness.

  Nikolas could have given in to it. He could have allowed his captor to run roughshod and saved himself even greater discomfort. But he didn’t. He continued to struggle.

  It was a futile gesture. The alien was simply too strong, too determined. So Nikolas wasn’t surprised when he felt himself submerged in a raving, synapse-shattering wave of pain…or when he felt his consciousness slip away again into the
depths of a slow, black sea…

  Jean-Luc Picard gazed across his desk at the strapping, blue-skinned officer who had come to see him. He knew exactly what his visitor wanted.

  Still, he allowed Vigo to broach the matter his own way, in his own time. The Pandrilite had earned that privilege with his valor, his dedication, and his unswerving loyalty.

  “You’ll recall what I told you about Pandril,” said Vigo. “What Ejanix told me before he died.”

  “I do,” said the captain.

  Ejanix had been Vigo’s mentor and close friend. Prior to his untimely death, he had insisted that their homeworld—a supposed utopia in which all classes of society were supposed to thrive—was riddled with tyranny and injustice. Vigo hadn’t believed it possible—not at first. But the more he had considered the matter, the more he felt it was his duty to determine the truth.

  Of course, Ejanix had become a revolutionary over the years, someone who had come to tolerate the use of force in the name of social change. Vigo didn’t condone that approach—he had already said as much. But it didn’t mean that he could dismiss Ejanix and his compatriots out of hand.

  If it turned out that they had a point, Vigo wanted those in the upper caste to be made aware of the problem. And as a member of the upper caste himself, he felt he was uniquely suited to the work of informing them.

  Picard sat back in his chair. “You wish to take advantage of that leave we spoke of?”

  “Yes,” said Vigo. “For the reasons we discussed.”

  The captain nodded. “I understand. And I will not stand in your way. If you feel you must go, I will make the necessary arrangements immediately.”

  Vigo looked grateful. “Thank you, sir.”

  Picard dismissed the need for gratitude with a wave of his hand. Vigo was a mainstay of his crew. The captain just wished he could do more for him.

  “Dismissed,” he told Vigo. “And good luck.”

  The lieutenant nodded, then got up and left. As he exited the room, Picard took a good look at his weapons officer, knowing he might never see him again.

  It wasn’t that he thought Vigo would prefer to remain on his homeworld. He believed that, in time, the Pandrilite would want to return to Starfleet, and to the Stargazer in particular.

  Picard just wasn’t certain that he would still be commanding the Stargazer when Vigo came back.

  He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the screen of his computer monitor—that of a fellow with prominent cheekbones, a strong, cleft chin, and inquisitive brown eyes. A young man, to be sure. And yet, he was already developing worry lines above the bridge of his nose.

  But then, he had more worries than most men his age.

  In a week’s time, he was slated to report to Starbase 59. Shortly after he arrived, he would attend a formal hearing, the subject of which would be his actions as commanding officer of the Stargazer, and his future in Starfleet.

  There would be three admirals present to hear his case. One was McAteer, his superior, and the man who had arranged the hearing in the first place. Another was Mehdi, who had made Picard a captain and given him command of the Stargazer.

  If all went as expected, McAteer would try to tear Picard down while Mehdi did his best to defend Picard’s decisions. One against one, an even contest—or it would have been, if McAteer and Mehdi had been the only combatants.

  But the third juror—and there had to be a third one, lest the contest end in a draw—was Admiral Caber, whose son had been unceremoniously kicked off the Stargazer for what Picard had believed were good reasons.

  The younger Caber had seen the matter otherwise. And at the time of his departure, he had threatened to use his father’s influence in Starfleet to get even with Picard.

  The Cabers’ chance to do that was close at hand. All the admiral had to do was side with McAteer and Picard would be abruptly stripped of his command—not to mention his rank.

  So when the captain wondered if he and Vigo would ever have a chance to serve together again, it wasn’t an idle question. It was a very real concern.

  Frowning, he ignored his reflection and focused on the list of Starfleet advisories on his monitor screen. He might not be a captain much longer, but for the time being he would continue to do his job.

  Nikolas woke to the feeling of something cold and wet against his cheek. Lifting his head, he saw that a puddle had gathered beneath his face in a trough formed by three stout, still-growing stalagmites.

  No, he thought, correcting himself. They weren’t just stalagmites anymore. They had connected with the stalactites growing above them, creating complete, hourglass-shaped columns. In fact, the corridor was lousy with them in both directions.

  But the alien was gone.

  Nikolas felt a wave of relief. What the invader had done to him…he never wanted to experience it again.

  He hadn’t known that a telepath could pillage someone’s mind that way. But then, the only telepaths he had known were a couple of doe-eyed Indrotti on Risa, and they had obviously been more interested in his body than his mind.

  He wished he were back on Risa at that very moment. He wished, in fact, that he were anywhere but on an Yridian cargo hauler inexplicably turned into an underground chamber.

  He touched his fingers to the puddle in which he had been lying and tasted it. It was water, all right. But where the devil was it coming from? And how was it manufacturing cones of accumulated mineral matter so quickly?

  Nikolas remembered what the alien had said to him: My doing. All my doing.

  But that was ridiculous. No one had the power to create this kind of environment on a spacegoing vessel…did they?

  Examining the mineral column closest to him, Nikolas saw that it was hard and surprisingly smooth to the touch. And it had to have come from somewhere.

  He had read stories of seemingly magical beings in the logs of the early starship captains—a teenager who had been brought up by powerful aliens, a mysterious humanoid named Trelane, even the ancient Greek god Apollo. But no one like them had turned up in the last fifty years, and there was speculation that they had never really existed in the first place.

  There has to be an explanation, he told himself. It can’t be the alien who’s doing this. Not on his own.

  Then he remembered the other thing the behemoth had said: But it’s not enough. I need more.

  What the hell did he mean by that? More mineral accumulations? What good could they possibly do him?

  Nikolas would eventually have to find out. But first, he wanted to know what had happened to his crewmates—his friend Ed Locklear and all the others. If they were lying somewhere all broken up, Nikolas doubted they would get any assistance from the alien.

  The question was where to look first. Fortunately, he didn’t have to dwell very long on the answer. He had been on his way to the bridge when he encountered the alien. It was still the most promising destination he could think of.

  Making his way through the forest of blue and orange columns, he found a turbolift and waited until the doors slid aside for him. Then he entered the compartment, punched the necessary code into the control panel, and watched the doors close again.

  The last time Nikolas had attempted a ride in the lift, the compartment had stopped partway to the bridge level and the doors had opened, apparently on their own. And that was when he had encountered the alien.

  A coincidence? It didn’t seem like one. But he wasn’t ready to believe that the invader was responsible. It was one thing to violate a mind and another to stop a moving turbolift.

  In any case, the lift didn’t stop this time. It kept going, moving in determined fashion through the ship, until it reached its appointed destination.

  When the doors parted, giving Nikolas access to the corridor, he got out and looked around—and found the same conditions that had prevailed two decks below. Cone-shaped projections coming from both the ceiling and the deck beneath his feet, each of them waxing larger right before his eyes.

>   But that wasn’t all he saw. Partway to the bridge, nearly hidden by a bend in the corridor, a pair of boots was lying on the deck—and Nikolas had a feeling they weren’t empty.

  Negotiating a path through the field of stalagmites, he got near enough to confirm it—there were legs attached to the boots, and a body attached to the legs. But it wasn’t yet clear to him whose it was. The only thing that was clear to him was that the body was no longer alive. It was too thin and too pale, and it was lying at too awkward an angle—the kind no humanoid could have adopted and survived.

  Feeling a lump in his throat, Nikolas advanced a little farther and saw that it was Redonna, the Dedderac who had piloted the ship. She was tough as duranium, as reliable as they came—and she had made a pass at him the night before the attack.

  “You see,” she had said, her voice low and lusty, “I’ve had my eye on you since the minute you beamed aboard. It gets lonely on a cargo hauler. But there are ways to relieve the loneliness…”

  Nikolas swore under his breath.

  In life, Redonna’s skin had been a series of wild black stripes on a white background. In death, the stripes seemed to have faded, leaving her looking pale and washed out. But that wasn’t the worst change in her appearance. Her cheeks had sunken, her eyes had retreated deep into their sockets, and the skin around her mouth had become dry and cracked.

  It was as if she had had the life drained from her. It didn’t make sense, but that was how it appeared.

  When she came on to Nikolas the other night, he had rebuffed her. But part of him had been tempted to go along with the idea. She was, after all, an attractive female.

  Or had been.

  Nikolas knelt on his bruised and battered knees and brushed his fingertips against Redonna’s face. Her flesh felt so cold, so terribly cold, that it was hard to imagine it had ever been any other way.

  He had barely known her, but he felt that he should do something for her—that it was up to him to mark her passing somehow. What could he do?